CSET's free one-day conference on the needs of ELLs was incredible. The speakers were inspiring and the dialogue established among leaders in the field was inspiring. The focus of the conference was opening up a conversation (and a plan with future meetings) on supporting mainstream teachers with ELLs in their classrooms. This explosion of ELLs has expanded into states that don't come to mind when you think about states with high numbers of ELLs. Arkansas was one such state. Its ELL populated has skyrocketed and they rose to the challenge with developing excellent coaching set ups between mainstream teachers and experienced educators thoroughly familiar with the delicate balancing act between delivering content that is accessible as well as boosting language skills so that the ELLs can be redesignated.
I was informed that much of the conference proceedings will be on the internet in a bit. Go to the link below and register so that you can be informed of future meetings:
http://ellib.stanford.edu/ (there is an excellent public video library there that can be used to study how ELD differs from core content material).
Denise
Another great site is
http://wordsift.com/. Students learn about words and the disciplines they come from as well. Just plug in a paragraph and click. What you get as a finished product is a new way to look at language, a new way to process it, a new way to separate academic language from common language. It is also free:)
Sounds Awesome!!
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